Many retail food locations, such as restaurants and grocery stores, permit customers to place orders for prepared food items for pickup or retrieval at the retail food location. Further, some of these establishments allow customers to place their orders for pickup prior to arrival at the retail location, such as by submitting the order over the phone or via the Internet. Many customers also prefer their food orders to be prepared in a customized manner or in a certain time frame prior to pickup to ensure freshness.
In addition to the convenience that retail food locations aim to provide customers, the retail food locations are interested in managing the provision of the food orders in a reliable and consistent manner to ensure a positive customer experience. Accordingly, it can be advantageous to improve the customers' ordering experience and the retail food location's management of the food orders.
Elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions and/or relative positioning of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of various embodiments of the present invention. Also, common but well-understood elements that are useful or necessary in a commercially feasible embodiment are often not depicted in order to facilitate a less obstructed view of these various embodiments of the present invention. Certain actions and/or steps may be described or depicted in a particular order of occurrence while those skilled in the art will understand that such specificity with respect to sequence is not actually required. The terms and expressions used herein have the ordinary technical meaning as is accorded to such terms and expressions by persons skilled in the technical field as set forth above except where different specific meanings have otherwise been set forth herein.